The present invention relates to a stackable low depth tray for storing and transporting beverages containers, such as bottles.
Plastic bottles are widely used as containers for soft drinks and other beverages. These bottles are often stored and transported in trays, particularly plastic trays having side walls, end walls and dividers defining pockets between the side walls and end walls. There are many known tray designs that are referred to as “low depth” trays in which the side walls, end walls and dividers are lower than the height of the stored bottles, and in which the bottles support the weight of additional trays and bottles stacked thereon.
One known type of low-depth tray had sidewalls and dividers all at the same height. In later versions of this tray, a portion of the dividers was lowered to reduce weight. This height of the side walls and dividers was the nest stop for empty crates stacked thereon in both a column (i.e. trays aligned) and cross stack (i.e. each row of trays is ninety degrees relative to the row of trays below it, or the trays are longitudinally aligned and longitudinally offset by 50%).
In the known trays, the bottom ribs of the tray base extend down approximately 0.1″ further than the sidewall. Raising the bottom edge of the sidewalls in this manner makes it easier for a delivery person to get a hand truck blade under a stack of crates to move them. As a result, the sidewalls of stacked empty crates do not rest on each other. It is the bottom ribs extending down from the base that rest on top of the dividers when stacked. One problem with this raised side wall design is that empty stacks are not as stable because the footprint is much smaller stacking on dividers only.
Later generation trays improved on this design by adding ribs on the outside of the walls to capture the sidewall of the crate above and also widening the lower part of the castle to capture the bottom ribs of the crate above.
In another tray, the side walls between the columns and the dividers are lowered for more visibility. As a result, the side walls do stack on the top of the side walls of the tray below. In this design, the columns are taller in order to better support bottles with a portion of reduced diameter between the base and a mid-portion of the bottle. One problem with this design is that the taller columns extend into the handle area of the tray above, in both a column stack and a cross stack position. In order to accommodate the handle, the columns are aggressively tapered on the outside face of the columns on the perimeter of the tray. However, the center columns still do not accommodate the handle in a longitudinal cross-stack arrangement. Also, this design results in corner columns that are more fragile because they include the aggressive taper on two sides.